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Porta
Obergefreiter/Stabsgefreiter Josef Porta is one of Sven Hassel's novel's main characters. He is the pilot for the Old Hun's tank, II platoon, V company. Born and bread in Bornholmerstrasse, Moabitt, Berlin. Has a knack for business and knows how to procure merchandise; loves to cook and self-proclaimed chef. He is fatally wounded in Russia by a Russian bayonet to the stomach in Autumn 1944. He is a marksman with a sniper's rifle, a brilliant mechanic, the finest tank driver in the regiment - and a maniac in a truck or an 'armoured sledge' (see SS General). He is very tall with red hair, green piggy-eyes and one hollow tooth (he carries a set of army issue dentures wrapped in a gun cleaning cloth). He wears a yellow top hat, won in a game of cards with a Romanian count. painted with blue and red rings, into battle (see The Legion Of The Damned for the story of the hat and monocle) and carries a cat named Stalin around with him. He and Tiny compete to rob corpses of gold teeth (although, at the beginning of Wheels Of Terror, Porta shoots two women who are corpse raiding during an air raid - just one of SH's little inconsistancies!). He will happily kill for coffee. Porta likes to claim that he is half-Jewish but this may just be to annoy Julius Heide. His big obsession, of course, is eating. He talks about food in his sleep and he eats as much food as possible before a battle - it's a nervous reaction. In Court Martial Porta relates a story of swapping recipes with an English soldier on the beach at Dunkirk! Porta's trance-like description of cooking during the march through the cactus forest at the beginning of The Bloody Road To Death, and the massive feast at the meat depot in Blitzfreeze must also rank highly in any selection of classic cuisine-based literature. Porta doesn't seem to have a weapon of choice: he is seen with literally any and all weapons at hand. He is a crack shot with a Russian sniper's rifle whenever he manages to put his hands on one. He often carries a standard-issue MP40 submachinegun but apparently prefers its Russian counterpart, the PPSh41. He occasionally wields a flamethrower or an MG34 light-machine gun. Porta's classic lines? Well, there's too many to mention. How about the time when he returns after two days of drinking and gambling, carried in a sedan chair. He leans out and hails his amazed colleagues: "Goes all well with Germany's arms? Let me see a list of today's victories." He tells outrageous (but quite true) tales and ends with comments like: "Now we have finished, let's have a song. What about 'It's Lovely To Be A Pimp'?" His stories drive people to distraction but he politely warns: "My stories are not to be sneezed at. You can learn a lot from them." Porta's father is serving time in Moabitt according to Chapter 9 of Monte Cassino. For fine examples of Porta's officer baiting style see 'Three Girls' Chapter 14 of Legion Of The Damned or 'Herr Niebelspang's Via Dolorosa' Chapter 2 of Blitzfreeze. Like all the main characters in The Legion Of The Damned, Porta is of course killed off (see Chapter 31 'There's A Man Lying Out On The Wire'). So, we'll never get to hear stories of him and Tiny and The Legionnaire clearing away a few of their enemies after the war. But he'll be around somewhere between Heaven and The Devil, because neither of them will take him in, and he'll be farting loudly and singing a filthy song. When Porta is dying in The Legion Of The Damned his last words are something like "Give old Adolf a kick up the arse for me. Servus!" "Servus" is widely used in Hungary and has a meaning like "Ciao" in Italian, you can use it as "Hi" or "Bye" whatever. More literally it would be equivalent to saying something like "Your servant" in old fashioned English. Neither Porta or Tiny ever aim on target during firing squad duties. He is one of only three characters (the others being Sven himself and the Old Man) who has appeared in all of the novels. In the movie "Sven Hassel's Wheels of Terror" (sometimes known as "The Misfit Brigade"), Ports is played by Bruce Davison. Section heading